Ariel Bernheim is a Swiss lawyer based in Geneva, admitted to the Geneva bar in 1962. He became a partner of the Geneva law firm Berger Recordon de Saugy, and his career remained centred on Geneva's legal profession, where he also studied law.
Background
Bernheim's documented background is closely tied to Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar and practised. Geneva is a French-speaking city on Lake Geneva, and its legal life combined Swiss civil-law traditions with the international role the city has held as a seat of diplomacy and multilateral organizations.
He spoke French, English and German. French is the working language of Geneva's courts, and Switzerland has several national languages, so his language skills matched the multilingual setting of Swiss legal practice.
Education
Bernheim studied law at the University of Geneva, where he obtained the Licence en droit, the first law degree in the French-language university tradition. The university traces its origins to the Academy founded by John Calvin in 1559, which became a university in 1873.
His admission to the Geneva bar in 1962 followed his legal studies. In Switzerland, lawyers are admitted by cantonal authorities, so this admission authorized him to practise in the canton of Geneva.
Career
Bernheim's professional life centred on the Geneva legal profession. He was a partner of Berger Recordon de Saugy, a Geneva law firm. The firm was established in Geneva in 1985 by three founders, one of whom was Jean de Saugy, and it is now known as BRS Berger Recordon & de Saugy. Its practice focuses mainly on family law, with inheritance and criminal matters also handled.
The Geneva firm now known as Ming Halpérin Burger Inaudi credits its foundation in 1965 to an Ariel Bernheim, a lawyer practising in the same city during the decades when Geneva's cantonal bar was expanding its international and commercial work.
